Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Remember when Donald Trump and his followers would chant "LOCK HER UP" over Hillary Clinton's usage of a private server because is supposedly left confidential government files exposed to prying eyes that didn't have the proper security clearance?

Yeah, about that.

It turns that hundreds... HUNDREDS!... of Donald Trump appointed White House personal, who have unfettered access to classified government documents, lack proper security clearances.

The stunning revelation was uncovered after it was shown that Rob Porter, the Trump aide who had beaten his ex-wives and resigned in disgrace, did not have a full security clearance.

This led to later reports that “30 to 40” White House officials lacked the permanent clearance.

And now new reports indicate that more than 100 White House staffers have been working without full security clearances including several prominent names such as White House counsel Don McGahn, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah, and Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.

To put this perspective all any one of these hundred plus White House personnel would need to do to provide a foreign government top secret information to would be to pick up a phone, fax, photograph or just walk out the front door with a copy of the info.

“The American people deserve a White House staff that clearly meets the highest standards and that has been carefully vetted — especially those who work closely with the president or handle sensitive national security information,”

Ya think so?

With hypocrisy this outrageous I wonder if there will be any chants of "Lock him up!" coming from the Trump supporters who fell for the Clinton server fake news or the "I only hire the best people" lie?

The study, released by professors Brandon Rottinghaus of the University of Houston and Justin S. Vaughn of Boise State University, found that Trump came in 40th out of 44 (while Trump is officially the 45th president, the survey did not count Grover Cleveland’s non-consecutive terms separately).

To give you an idea how just how bad Trump's rating is he closely follows James Buchanan, America’s 15th president, who presided over the increasingly explosive national debate over slavery, and who saw the Union split apart after the election of his successor, Lincoln.

As for the best of the bunch the top seven remained unchanged from when the survey was conducted last in 2014 with Abraham Lincoln topped the list with an average score of 95.03, followed by George Washington with 92.59.

Meanwhile, there is still hope, as Trump has almost three more years, seven if he's lucky, to hit that presidential pivot and prove to the country that he's not just a embarrassing, petulant, thin skinned, egomaniacal, narcissistic, lying, bully with no understanding of good will, social graces or how to conduct himself as an adult.

The Times has revealed that Rick Gates, a former top campaign aide and deputy campaign manager to Donald Trump, will plead guilty and cooperate with the Mueller Russia probe in return for a more lenient sentence.

Gates who was indicted on charges ranging from money laundering to violations of foreign lobbying law was that could have netted him 10 plus years in federal prison will reportedly change his plea in return for an 18 month prison stint in exchange for his full cooperation.

Another factor in Gates' decision was said to be that the 45 year old, who is married with four children, does not appear to to have the finances to mount nor sustain a high-powered legal defense.

Gates cooperation is said to include testifying against his longtime business partner Paul Manafort, a longtime Washington lawyer, lobbyist and resident of Trump Towers, who served as Trump’s campaign manager during part of the 2016 presidential race.

The speculation that Gates was about to flip on Trump has been circulating for weeks as he had fired his original attorneys and retained Thomas Green, a high-powered defense lawyer lawyer renowned for his deal making skills in political cases.

According to the outlet, the special counsel’s team was finalizing a deal after Gates was allowed to give what’s known as a “Queen for a Day” interview, which typically allows a defendant to speak openly about their knowledge of an investigation without facing additional charges.

The Mueller probe has already flipped Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn and and his foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos both of whom have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

The news comes just days after the Justice Department announced a sweeping set of charges against 13 Russians and three Russian entities, detailing a sophisticated and expensive campaign to to aid Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

If you do the math you'll notice that the time period matches up for the just after Melania gave birth to their son Barron and when he was carrying on an affair with the aforementioned porn star.

The documents, which were later confirmed by McDougal to be authentic, were provided to The New Yorker by one of her friends.

McDougal's story describes how Trump carried out the affair after the two had met at a party at the Playboy Mansion. She describes how he would pay for dinners in a private bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel so that there would be "No paper trails for him."

McDougal even revealed that Trump offered her money after their first sexual encounter as seen in the following text...

Click enlarge

Later in the piece she reveals disturbing details about Trump including disrespecting her mother, who was close to Trump's age, by calling her an "old hag," and repeatedly making lewd, stereotypical references to black men's genitals.

And then there was the cover-up aided and abetted by Trump's wealthy friends.

McDougal says that after the affair ended she signed a limited life-story rights agreement in August 2016 for $150,000 with the publisher of the National Enquirer, a tabloid owned by David Pecker.

Pecker, close friend of Trump's, then killed her story claiming they did not find McDougal to be credible.

This in effect silenced McDougal as she had agreed in the contract that the National Enquirer would own the sole exclusive rights to her story thus forbidding her from making it available to any other media outlet.

The New Yorker sights Jerry George, a former senior editor for American Media, Inc., who admitted that Pecker would routinely buys and kills stories to protect Trump claiming...

"We never printed a word about Trump without his approval,"

After deep mixing the expose' the company, according to the report, agreed to publish regular columns by McDougal on aging and wellness, and to feature her on at least two magazine covers.

Those arrangements never came to fruition.

According to The New Yorker McDougal regretted signing the contract saying...

"It took my rights away. At this point I feel I can't talk about anything without getting into trouble, because I don't know what I'm allowed to talk about. I'm afraid to even mention his name."

McDougal told the magazine she hopes speaking out would convince others to avoid signing similar agreements.

According to the magazine, McDougal, a Republican, was at first reluctant to speak about her alleged affair during the presidential campaign, fearing that Trump supporters might accuse her of fabricating her account or harm her or her family.

The story closely mimics Trump's affair with porno star Stormy Daniels in which his long time personal attorney, Michael Cohen, paid $130,000 to sign a a non-disclosure agreement effectively silencing her ahead of the 2016 election.

For their part the White House has denied the affair in a statement to the magazine...

"This is an old story that is just more fake news. The President says he never had a relationship with McDougal,"

The story will undoubtably have little to no effect on Trump's standing with his hardcore base as they have stated that Trump gets "a Mulligan" on all of his past indiscretions such as affairs, misogyny, sexual assault, and general horridness because they like his policies.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

As the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School gun gun massacre cry out stricter gun control laws in wake of Wednesday’s mass shooting Donald Trump has instead found some new scapegoats to blame for the 17 senseless murders.

The strawmen Trump and the right have decided on are the Democrats and the FBI.

Hundreds gather at gun control rally in Florida

In the first tweet he posted, which came only hours after students and activists attended a gun control rally at the Florida high school, Trump questioned why Democratic lawmakers had not passed “gun control legislation when they had both the House & Senate” under President Obama...

Touche' Donald!

This post would lead you to believe that since Trump and the Republicans run all three branches of the government, the Executive, the Judiciary and the Legislative, they will pass gun control legislation post haste!

Trump was not finished laying blame.

In yet another late Saturday tweet, Trump put the onus on the FBI for missing “all of the many signals” sent out by the gunman in Wednesday’s deadly high school shooting in Parkland, Florida calling the agency’s failure was “very sad” and “not acceptable.” He also suggested the agency had spent "too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.”...

You see it's everybody else's fault. Trump and guns are the true victims here.

As for the excuse that the FBI is at fault Trump must have forgotten that it is Rober Mueller's special Counsel that is investigating his collusion with Russia... They don't handle phone tips about unbalanced teens.

When asked about the scarcity of Trump's press conferences the White House replied...

“The president and his administration have been one of the accessible administrations,”

While not holding any formal press conferences over the last year Trump has taken questions from the press pool, a rotating group of correspondents who document the his daily movements, spontaneously answering questions they shout at him as he travels.

In addition Trump has engaged in 22 joint press conferences where he takes questions from the press while with other world leaders. Yet in these instances Trump is afforded the luxury of picking the reporters he chooses to engage with usually taking questions from friendly outlets.

The lack of formal press conferences, however, may be a strategy to prevent Trump from engaging in self-inflicted damage due to his tendency to shoot from the lip and his inability to to tell the truth.

Over the course of his time in office Trump has realized that Twitter is a much easier avenue to disseminate his agenda and not be fact checked for his mistruths live by reporters.

And if you were wondering there is indeed a tweet for this occasion...

Never fails.

For contrast on the subject of formal press conferences here's how others stacked up during their first years in office...• Barack Obama: 11• George W. Bush: 5• Bill Clinton: 11 • George H. W. Bush: 27 • Ronald Reagan: 6 • Jimmy Carter: 22 • Gerald Ford (who only served from August to December in his first year as president): 4 • Richard Nixon: 6

Friday, February 16, 2018

A federal grand jury empaneled by Special Counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 13 Russians and three Russian entities for their interference into the 2016 US elections to aid Donald Trump's campaign.

The report states that Mueller’s team indicted a Russian state-controlled troll farm called the Internet Research Agency, as well as two Russian organizations that funded election interference operations Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering. The grand jury also handed down indictments for 13 Russian nationals accused of working to aid those groups.

According to Mueller's findings Russia’s effort to interfere with the U.S. political system dated back to at least 2014 and that by September 2016 the monthly budget for their operations exceeded $1.25 million.

The indictment represents the first charges brought drawing a direct connection with election interference and Russia.

The damning indictment lays out, in unrelenting detail, evidence that foreign nationals criminally interfered in the 2016 election to boost the candidacy of President Donald Trump.

The 37-page document effectively decimates Trump and his supporters attempts to undermine Mueller’s investigation by dismissing the existence of pro-Trump Russian activity in the 2016 election.

In other words this decision by the empaneled grand jury effectively ends Donald Trump and his supporters never-ending cries that Mueller’s probe is a “witch hunt” and a “hoax.”

After the indictment was handed down, instead of being outraged that a foreign country had committed crimes against America's democratic process, Trump immediately went to his fallback position of claiming that there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia during the 2016 election...

FACT CHECK:If the Russian's attempts to interfere in US politics began in 2014 that would directly line up with when Trump returned to the US after holding his Mrs. Universe pageant in Russia.

What Trump fails to understand is that Mueller has shown in no uncertain terms that Russia's interference in our democratic elections was criminal and thus anyone aiding and abetting their efforts are criminals as well.

If Trump does realize this I'll bet it is one of the few times he is the one peeing his own bed tonight.

Mueller's investigation into the collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign in the 2016 election has already brought two indictments and two guilty pleas involving four aides to the Trump campaign.

Daniels will have forensic testing done on a dress she says she wore the night of an alleged hotel tryst with Donald Trump

According to a new report Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress who claims to have have had an affair with Donald Trump, says she has kept a gold dress from the night of an alleged encounter that backs up past claims.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, says she kept the garment from her 2006 rendezvous with then-real estate developer and "Apprentice" host Donald Trump.

It is been reported that the dress has been kept in pristine condition since her hook-up with Trump in a hotel room in Lake Tahoe during a golf tournament.

The revelation comes after Trump's longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, revealed to the New York Times that he had paid Daniels $130,000 in hush money weeks before the 2016 presidential election.

Cohen told the Times...

"Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly." Cohen added "The payment to Ms. Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone,"

Cohen's confession has apparently backfired as it violated the nondisclosure agreement shared between the two parties leaving Daniels free to talk about her involvement with Trump.

The report said she planned to have it forensically tested for skin, hair or other material.

Daniels manager, Gina Rodriguez, is now seeking to secure a six-figure deal for the actress to speak about her relationship with Trump.

Cohen's confession came as pressure mounted on the Trump campaign to explain the origin of the payment by the group Common Cause who had filed a complaint last month with the Department of Justice and the Federal Election Commission alleging the pay-off represented an unreported in-kind contribution to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.

Today Donald Trump read a prepared statement in which he finally addressed Wednesday's mass shooting at a Florida high school that took the lives of 17 people.

Included in Trump's message was the suggestion the alleged shooter was mentally disturbed and his pledge to work with state and local leaders to...

“tackle the difficult issue of mental health,”

In addition to the televised statement Trump tweeted earlier in the morning that perhaps "neighbors and classmates" could have done more to prevent the mentally ill man from perpetrating the massacre...

In light of these statements it is important to remember that one year ago today Trump signed legislation cutting an Obama-era regulation that added the names of people who are receiving Social Security checks for mental illnesses and people who are deemed unfit to handle their own financial affairs to the national gun background check database.

Trump signed the bill, which was heartily applauded by the NRA, without fanfare or photos.